Beaumont residents Scott and Stephanie Kuntz and his daughter Madisyn Kuntz, a 21-year-old Las Vegas resident, enjoy the Route 91 Harvest country music festival before the shooting Sunday, Oct. 1, that left at least 59 dead and 527 injured. They survived unscathed but had a harrowing night in Las Vegas.

A Beaumont family is reeling after surviving a harrowing night in Las Vegas that felt like “another 9/11.”

The Kuntz family escaped from Sunday’s Route 91 Harvest festival unscathed, only to take a ride-sharing trip that went horribly wrong before getting trapped in a locked-down hotel.

“Two days later, I’m just glad to be alive,” said Scott Kuntz, who goes each year to the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in the Coachella Valley.

He, his wife Stephanie, and his daughter Madisyn, a 21-year-old Las Vegas resident, joined two other Beaumont families at the event.

On Tuesday, Oct. 3, Kuntz recalled the melee that broke out on the outdoor country music festival’s last night shortly after he heard what first sounded like fireworks while country star Jason Aldean played.

Aldean and the crowd kept rolling until more gunshots rang out about a minute later. The firing was so loud, the crowd and police thought the shooter was in the concert area.

Aldean suddenly bailed off the stage and “ bodies started rolling,” said Kuntz, 50.

They were in the back near concessions and got separated from their friends as people tried to flee through the only exit.

“We’re looking at 22,000 people running at us — like bulls,” Kuntz said.

He believes most of the 59 people killed by gunman Stephen Craig Paddock, who authorities say fired from his 32nd-floor room in Mandalay Bay hotel, were near the stage under bright concert lights.

People hit the ground for cover and trampled all over each other. Kuntz felt bad for large people he saw who couldn’t run fast enough. Arms were broken and legs were injured.

Kuntz stuffed his wife and daughter under a vendor’s table that had a drape in front and got on top of them until more gates opened. Then they ran for at least half a mile, passing a Hooters restaurant from which screaming people were running.

Kuntz and the women hopped into an Uber/Lyft rideshare taxi and found the Middle Eastern driver couldn’t speak English and didn’t seem to know about the massacre. The trio was out of breath and in defense mode when the driver stopped the car and got something from his trunk.

Thinking he had a gun, the women ran from the car in panic and Kuntz got out to tackle him when the man returned, offering water.

Dropped off at the Paris Las Vegas hotel, they quickly packed to leave when hotel staff announced over loudspeakers that the casino had to be vacated and the resort was on lockdown.

Local news outlets reported multiple shootings at Las Vegas strip hotels. Someone tweeted Madisyn Kuntz that there was an active shooter at the Paris hotel.

The Kuntz family barricaded themselves in their hotel room.

“We thought there were going to be terrorists, bomb threats — another 9/11,” Kuntz said.

The family pushed a couch, two chairs and two ottomans against the door. Scott Kuntz grabbed lamps to use as clubs. They kept the TV on low but didn’t call the front desk for fear terrorists had taken over the hotel, created a hostage situation and would then know where they were.

They thought there was more than one attacker until early the next morning, when they learned there was only one shooter and he was dead. They slept about an hour that night.

On Tuesday, Kuntz was still coming to grips with the fact that he and his family survived the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history, while others weren’t so lucky.

Suzanne Hurt has written about everything from boxcar tramps and crooked politicians to surf kayaking, flash floods and the vanishing Borneo rainforest. She’s worked as a reporter at the legendary wire service City News Bureau of Chicago and daily newspapers, The Register-Guard and The Modesto Bee, after a stint as an editor. As a freelancer, she produced hard news and nature, science, adventure travel and extreme sports content, including multimedia. For The Press-Enterprise and Southern California News Group, Suzanne specializes in narrative storytelling, backed by extensive hard news experience, strict journalism standards and a master’s in literary nonfiction from the University of Oregon’s journalism school. She’s told the story of one person’s survival of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, traced a man’s path out of homelessness and recreated the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino through first responders’ eyes. Also covering GA and the environment, she’s written about avalanche danger, canyoneering, snowshoeing, desert and waterfall hikes, cowboy movers, rescue divers, rabid bats, stealthy burros, the mother orange tree scientists won’t let die and the Jesus pancake.